Thursday, December 05, 2013

SHORT FEATURE: THE SNOW MAN

So, last week I reviewed Frozen for Aleteia. This was the film that was supposed to mark Disney’s big return to the glory of their animation Renaissance which began with The Little Mermaid. Unfortunately, the film fell a little short of the mark. Still, it had its good parts and my kid thought the talking snowman was pretty funny.

That’s to be expected, of course, because usually such creatures are jolly happy souls. But not all of them. This guy, for instance, is a downright cold hearted monster…

That’s the way it is sometimes, isn’t it? One second your snowman is a playful pal, and the next he turns into a cackling, slobbering, butt-naked, homicidal maniac intent on devouring you whole (they just don’t make quality children’s entertainment like that anymore). I hate it when that happens.

The Catechism tells us that “St. Thomas More, shortly before his martyrdom, consoled his daughter: Nothing can come but that that God wills. And I make me very sure that whatsoever that be, seem it never so bad in sight, it shall indeed be the best.” Well, being a Saint, he would say something like that, wouldn’t he? Personally, I wish I could say I had that kind of faith every single time events turn tail and head in a rotten direction, but, alas, God still has a bit of work to do on me before I get to pose for my holy card.

But even though I don’t always show it, I still believe deep inside, as the Catechism says, that “only at the end, when our partial knowledge ceases, when we see God "face to face", will we fully know the ways by which - even through the dramas of evil and sin - God has guided his creation to that definitive Sabbath rest for which he created heaven and earth.” Even the bad times mean something, and that’s nice to know.